


Omens And Prodigies

by cycnus39



Category: Jurassic Park III (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:48:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cycnus39/pseuds/cycnus39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy returns to the dig site too soon after Isla Sorna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Omens And Prodigies

Omens And Prodigies  
By Cyc

 

No, he hadn't been half-eaten by dinosaurs. He'd been pecked at by pterosaurs. It's a clade thing. Pteranodon means 'winged and toothless', but InGen had made their Pteranodons with teeth, which technically didn't make them Pteranodons at all, but, even then, they had only sort of nibbled at him. Their behaviour was more akin to mobbing than hunting. The flock probably figured he deserved a good mobbing for flying around stealing food out of their flaplings' beaks. So, no, he hadn't been half-eaten by dinosaurs; he'd been pecked at by pterosaurs.

Yeah, even out of his head on hospital meds he had given pterosaur lectures to everyone with ears. The radiologists in particular had found his ramblings on pterosaur forelimb osteology and elbow articulation very entertaining and took great glee in letting him know it as soon as he was compos mentis. Being compos mentis was overrated. Those pterosaur 'nibbles' had resulted in just about everything down the left side of his body being broken and torn to Hell and back. He'd never hurt so much in his life and sincerely prayed he would never feel half as bad ever again. 

But he was getting pretty damn close to it now.

While the ironclad medical insurance his parents had gifted him with had enabled the operations and physical therapy that had got his body back in working order, not even surgical steel could fix his relationship with Alan. He could see that now. He had been at the dig for four days and Alan had barely looked at him never mind spoken to him.

Standing naked in front of his trailer's large but grainy bathroom mirror, Billy tried to see himself as Alan saw him. He didn't know what to look for. His gaze drifted over the wealth of neat surgical scars that littered his left arm before he twisted to see the long jagged scar that ran down over his left shoulder blade. He then looked down at the scars on his left hip, thigh and knee before his attention turned to the fresh, angry bruises decorating his right knee and shin. He was pretty sure no one had noticed him fall yesterday but that wasn't the point. There was no use driving himself to exhaustion if Alan never even glanced his way.

Avoiding looking himself in the eye, Billy turned away from the mirror, grabbed the bag of meds from the shelf above the sink and counted out his morning dose of white painkillers, yellow anti-inflammatories, blue happy pills and black capsules of doom, swallowed them with a few mouthfuls of water. He then walked back into the bedroom area and pulled on some fresh clothes. When he sat on the bed to tie his boots, he found he didn't want to get up again. 

It wasn't the pain he knew would shoot up his knee as soon as he tried to stand that kept him sitting. It wasn't even the shroud of exhaustion weighing him down that kept him there. It was the thought that this day on the dig would be just like the others. He didn't want to go outside and pretend everything was just like it was before Isla Sorna. He didn't want to pretend his joints weren't seizing up to the point of absolute fucking agony every day, didn't want to go on ignoring Alan ignoring him. 

But then the thought of Alan glancing his way and maybe even smiling a little was too much to resist and he had to go out and try. Suddenly sure Alan couldn't ignore him forever, he stood up, flexed his complaining knee and headed out into the morning.

The dig was deserted. 

Standing at the top of his trailer steps, he couldn't see any of the students who usually littered the site like so many worker ants. Frowning, he clunked down the metal steps onto the dusty ground and walked a few yards into the dig proper. 

There was no one else there. 

While there were signs that people had started work that morning, the only movement came from the breeze flapping the odd piece of tarpaulin.

"I'm working on the Mary Celeste," Billy muttered before heading towards the high ridge at the northern edge of the site. 

He had barely climbed to the top of his lookout point when he heard voices coming from the northeast gully. Still unable to see anyone, he followed his ears down the slope and around the corner. 

Everyone was there, gathered around Alan, talking excitedly.

He'd missed it. 

Someone had found something really great and he'd missed Alan's reaction. How could it be worse? Oh yeah, someone had discovered something really great and Alan knew he'd missed it. 

Fuck.

Feeling like overburden, Billy made his way up to join the others. He'd barely got amongst their chattering ranks when Alan broke them up.

"Back to work now, children," he said with that indulgent purr Billy could almost feel. 

As the crowd moved, Billy waited, ostensibly to catch a look at the find but really to see that wry smile on Alan's face.

Then he saw it.

As the students parted, he saw the wing bones of a very large pterosaur coming out of the gully wall. One bone had apparently eroded out fairly recently but was already bleached a light blue-grey that contrasted strongly with the pale tan of the chalk. Someone had dug back into the gully wall about sixteen inches to uncover most of the articulated upper wing bones. This un-weathered material was a reddish brown colour and the revealed humerus was huge. 

"Quetzalcoatlus?" he looked up to ask Alan with an excited grin.

Smiling, Alan shook his head. "We're not in Texas, Billy. I'd say a thirty foot wingspan at the very most." 

Billy whistled. "That's no chicken you've got there, Dr Grant."

"How about we start digging and find out exactly what we do have here, Mr Brennan?"

Billy didn't need to be asked twice. Scrambling up the far side of the gully wall, he joined Alan standing over the partially excavated area in no time flat. From his new vantage point, he could clearly see how the wing bones were orientated in a v-shape with the open end pointing into the side of the gully. The position of the bones and the fact that they were still articulated indicated that the rest of the pterosaur might still be in the chalk. Since Alan had already got the enthused students to remove the first lot of overburden, there was only two or three inches of chalk covering the fossil around the exposed bones.

"Alan, I think I see jaw," Billy said breathlessly, lying down on his stomach with his right hand automatically reaching for a brush to better reveal the sharp point of bone hidden under the distal portions of the radius/ulna. 

"My God, you're right," Alan muttered, lying down close and grabbing a brush to help.

It was slow work removing the remainder of the chalk with ice pick, brush and the occasional, careful use of a rock hammer, but it flew by for Billy. As soon as he and Alan started working at the level where the original material was found, they encountered additional bone, including large portions of lower jaw. Further excavation at the posterior end of the jaw showed additional bone above the upper surface and eventually they found the entire skull in place, still articulated with the lower jaw. 

It was the find of a lifetime. 

They just needed to see the crest.

An hour later, Billy realised he really should have stopped to get something to eat and take his meds at lunchtime, knew his joints were aching so badly he wouldn't be able to stand up without help never mind walk back to his trailer, but they finally had a crest.

"Well, there it is," Alan pronounced with a speculative frown.

"A giant, malformed Nyctosaurus?" Billy teased.

Alan just looked at him. 

Grinning, Billy turned in the direction of the main site. "We've got a Northeast Gullysaurus!" 

The answering cheer from the students was drowned out by Alan's disapproving purr.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Billy. While it doesn't seem to resemble anything found thus far, we're hardly pterosaur experts despite..." Alan broke off with an uncomfortable glance down at the huge skull.

That's when Billy saw it, really saw it for the first time. 

The creature they had been working on all day was a fossil now but it had once been a truly terrifying predator. Once, it had ruled the skies, bringing death from above. It was almost twice the size of the Pteranodons that had attacked him and the violence it would have wrought would have been devastating.

Devastating. 

The left side of his body suddenly went cold as he imagined the sharp point of the pterosaur's beak gouging into flesh, his flesh. Then he was leaning away, trying to get up, but his joints rebelled, his elbow buckled, and he pitched forwards into the pterosaur.

He knew it was just a fossil, knew he could do more damage to it by falling on it than it could ever do to him, but his mad scramble to escape its dead stare was borne of nothing but blind panic. Even after he managed to roll away, he couldn't stand up, couldn't breathe, could only lie helplessly on his side until the white noise in his head cleared and Alan was talking to him, holding him.

"Breathe, Billy. Just breathe," Alan said gently before bellowing out orders and Billy realised the students had gathered around them, some hurrying to secure the pterosaur as Alan had instructed while others offered to help him back to his trailer, to bring a truck around, to go into town for a doctor.

He felt like such an idiot.

"It's fine, I'm all right," Billy tried to sound reassuring while pulling himself up a surprised but nonetheless warmly supportive Alan. "But I guess you won't be seeing the Northeast Gullysaurus on any restaurant menus because it made a pretty poor lunch," he joked to a sea of doubtful faces while manoeuvring Alan around to help him back to the trailer. 

"And that ends your object lesson for the day," Alan told the students, waited until they had drifted back to work before helping Billy down the slope.

As Alan steadied him at the bottom of the slope, Billy tried to lean away from Alan for the benefit of the watching students, but he couldn't. His left side had seized up to the point it refused to give him anything but pain and the only thing that made it better, that made anything better, was Alan.

God, he loved Alan, loved the feel of Alan's warm strength, just wanted to stand leaning into Alan for as long as he could despite the pain, despite everything, but then they were nearly at the trailer and Alan was getting ready to help him up the steps, was cursing under his breath, "What the Hell were you thinking?"

"'What a large crest you have, Dr Grant'?" he managed to unclench his jaw to answer.

"Those bones aren't going anywhere, Billy," Alan growled back, and, at another time, in another place, Billy would have apologised, but not here, not now. It was too late. The pterosaur was an omen: whatever he and Alan had was over and he'd just handed Alan the perfect excuse to send him away.

* * * *

Alan felt Billy's trembling body leaning heavily against him as he opened the trailer door, heard Billy's gasped breaths as they made their way up the trailer steps and across the worn carpet, and knew it was all his fault. 

When Billy had asked to come to the dig early, far too early, he should have said no. The problem was he couldn't refuse Billy anything. It had been like that almost right from the beginning. Alan knew he was an old fool blinded by the beauty of Billy's sheer exuberance for life, but saying no was a lesson he was going to have to learn.

"Sit there and don't move," he said gruffly while lowering Billy into the trailer's battered couch. 

Surprisingly, Billy did exactly as he was told. Alan knew he should have been relieved, but Billy's cowed posture unsettled him. Just a few minutes before at the pterosaur excavation, Billy had been as bright and brilliant as always. Alan had spent half the time just watching Billy work, amazed in a way that made his heart ache to touch. But now that brilliance was gone, snuffed out by his stupidity.

"Do you have something to eat?" he asked Billy over his shoulder while turning into the kitchen area and picking a cup up from the worn drying mat by the sink.

"Pizza," Billy answered so flatly Alan barely heard him over the running water as he filled the cup. 

Turning off the tap, he opened the mini-fridge door and wrestled yesterday's crumpled pizza box free from the containers of fossil dough before elbowing the door shut again and placing both the pizza and the water on the scuffed table in front of Billy.

No reaction.

Frowning, he asked a little more harshly than he intended, "Where do you keep your pills, Billy?"

Billy didn't even look at him, just tilted his head in the direction of the bathroom. "Black bag."

Alan immediately stalked into the bathroom and retrieved the bag from the shelf above the sink. When he returned to stand by the couch, Billy still hadn't moved. 

Scowling, Alan opened the medication bag, squinted at the bottles. "How many do you take?"

"I'll do it." Billy reached up and took the bag from Alan but still refused to look at him.

It was painful. Watching Billy choke down pill after pill with a few mouthfuls of pizza and gulps of water hurt more than Alan could have ever imagined. But, after settling back bonelessly into the couch, Billy finally looked him in the eye and--

"Will you write me a reference, Alan?" 

He blinked.

He must have been hearing things because there was no way Billy--

"Dr Winters is still offering me that place," Billy continued almost apologetically, "but I'd rather try Ed Banning or maybe Dr Kilpatrick first."

Ed Banning? 

Ed the-international-superhero-of-vertebrate-palaeontology Banning?? 

Feeling as if he'd just been kicked in the stomach, Alan sat heavily down on the couch beside Billy, wanted to say no, wanted to ask why, ended up trying to find his Billy in the eyes of a defeated stranger. "If that's what you want," he heard someone say in his voice. "But what about the pterosaur?"

Billy looked away. "What about it?"

"What about it?" he blurted back in disbelief. "It's--" No. He knew the pterosaur was special, knew Billy did too. 

Billy had always been a prodigy in the field -- he had the best eye, the best hands, Alan had ever seen -- but the last four days on the site had been different. Although Billy had worked as hard and efficiently as always, there was something missing, a spark of utter joy that had only returned at the pterosaur excavation. Now it had gone again and Billy seemed to be crumbling in on himself.

He'd done it all wrong. 

He'd wanted things to be back the way they were before Isla Sorna so badly that he'd rushed it, told himself that having Billy supervise the more gifted undergrads would be a gentle way to ease Billy back to work even though he knew Billy would still find a way to overdo it because Billy never knew when to stop.

He was such a fool.

What made him think the excellent paper Billy had written on the Pteranodon mobbing and hunting behaviour they had experienced had exorcised those demons for Billy when they still made him wake up in a cold sweat two nights a week? He'd failed Billy on Isla Sorna and now, no matter how much he wanted to succeed, he was failing Billy again.

Maybe Ed Banning would do better.

"Well, I guess Ed's running enough digs for you to find a Muttaburrasaurus on every continent," he joked feebly, was unprepared for the wide-eyed look Billy fixed him with in return. 

"You think he'll take me?"

"Of course he'll take you." Alan frowned at Billy's uncharacteristic attack of doubt. "Why wouldn't he?"

Billy shrugged, folded his arms across his chest and looked down at the last slice of pizza cowering in the box.

Alan was at a loss.

Maybe he'd been too distant.

Mindful of this need for Billy that had made him agree to Billy returning to the dig early, he'd given Billy a wide berth on site, waited for Billy to come to him. Maybe that was a mistake. While Billy's recovery had been surprisingly short, he knew it had still been arduous, perhaps even arduous enough to sap Billy's perennial confidence?

Sitting watching Billy waiting for him to leave, Alan knew he had to act, had to slip his left arm around Billy's shoulders and pull Billy close, had to say into the soft curls of Billy's head, "I'm sorry." 

Unfolding his arms, Billy turned into the embrace, laid his head on Alan's shoulder. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"No," Alan sighed, kissed the top of Billy's head. "I didn't do anything right."

"Alan--" Billy leaned away to look Alan in the eye, but then was taking his mouth in a plundering kiss, and Alan could do nothing but pull Billy tighter against him, return the kiss, take-- Billy was wriggling out of his hold, kissing him down the side of the neck, pulling open his shirt, pulling up his undershirt, kissing a path down his chest to his stomach, and Billy's mouth felt so good on his skin, felt like salvation, like eternal absolution, but Alan still couldn't forget where they were.

"Billy, this isn't the--"

"Don't send me away, Alan, please," Billy gasped between kisses. "I'll do anything. Please." 

"Send you away?" Alan struggled to comprehend what Billy meant through a dizzying rush of arousal, tried to pull Billy back up his body, but Billy wouldn't stop, was unbuckling his belt, opening his fly.

"Billy, don't. Billy!" Alan lost his breath as Billy's fine fingers released his suddenly achingly hard erection into the cool air. "Billy, this isn't--" 

The wet heat of Billy's mouth engulfing his erection chased every thought from Alan's mind. Then Billy was sucking the head of his erection while squeezing the shaft with that strong right hand and Alan couldn't stop it, didn't want to stop it, closed his eyes and let his orgasm wash over him. 

* * * *

As soon as Alan's come spurted into his mouth, Billy came hard in his pants, but he didn't stop squeezing and sucking Alan's erection, couldn't stop until Alan's body stopped trembling and Alan stroked his hair and told him it was enough. Then he moved back, rested his head on Alan's stomach and watched Alan's hands awkwardly tuck his softening erection away then zip up his fly. 

Billy didn't want to move. The awkward position was making his joints scream and he could feel Alan shifting uncomfortably below him, but he didn't want to move, couldn't move, not as long as he could hear Alan's heartbeat and Alan's fingers were stroking his shoulder, tugging gently through his hair.

"I can hear your heart," he finally murmured into the soft cotton of Alan's undershirt.

Alan let out an inelegant snort. "They can probably hear it in Butte. A little warning would be appreciated next time, Billy. I'm not exactly getting any younger."

Billy couldn't stop the huge grin that spread over his face. "Then consider yourself warned," he replied, sitting up to flex his complaining joints a little before settling back into Alan's embrace with his head on Alan's shoulder. "And fossils are teases that aren't getting any younger so I guess you're just my type."

"Well," Alan began with a frown in his voice, paused to kiss the top of Billy's head before concluding, "that sentence made no sense whatsoever."

"Sure it did," Billy argued contentedly into the warmth of Alan's shoulder. "You know how when you just start an excavation and you've stripped off the overburden and there's just those little points of bone breaking the surface and you have to decide which brush they're going to like, which pick, which touch is going to reveal their true lengths, which stroke, how you're going to blow--"

"Behave," Alan chastised.

"Or what?" Billy sniggered.

"Or I won't name my pterosaur after you."

Billy froze, waited for Alan to go on, but Alan just kissed the top of his head again, so he pushed back out of Alan's embrace to meet Alan's gaze. "You'd do that? You'd name it after me?"

"Of course." Alan suddenly looked uncomfortable. "I found it, Billy. It is customary for me to give it a name."

"But a Billysaurus?"

Rolling his eyes, Alan got up from the couch. "Lie down and get some sleep," he said, easing Billy's upper body down into the couch's lumpy embrace. "The pterosaur--"

"Billysaurus."

"Pterosaur," Alan repeated, "will wait until tomorrow. I'll continue on the Deinonychus excavation then find out what's for dinner and--"

"Stew surprise," Billy supplied while trying to wriggle into a comfortable position on the damn near prehistoric couch.

Alan gave him a baleful look. "Dare I ask what the surprise is?"

"It's nothing but carrots and TVP."

"TVP?"

"Textured vegetable protein, Alan. You've been eating it all week."

Alan scowled. "I thought it was beef."

"Some of it was. Chad bulked it out with the TVP so we could afford pizza night."

"Great."

As Alan made to turn away, Billy gave up on trying to get comfortable on the couch and grabbed Alan's wrist. "Wait." He pulled himself up into a sitting position leaning on Alan's arm. "This couch is just going to make me ache. Can you give me a hand to bed?"

"Come here," Alan sighed, helping Billy up off the couch into a warm embrace.

"Mmm, I do like your couchside manner, Dr Grant," Billy purred, wrapping his arms around Alan's neck and helping himself to a kiss. "But I bet your bedside manner is even better."

"And I bet you're going to fall asleep within the next ten minutes regardless of my manner," Alan returned dryly.

Since Alan's prognosis was probably right, Billy didn't argue, just let Alan walk him through to the bedroom area then ease him down onto the mattress.

"Oh God, thank you," Billy groaned, closing his eyes as his aching body finally relaxed into the supportive comfort of the mattress. It felt good, so damned good it was almost orgasmic, almost...Hell! 

Opening his eyes, Billy tilted his head up to look down his body and confirm what the warm tickles of arousal in his groin had already told him. Yeah, his erection was tenting out his pants like a big top. 

"Quite settled?" Alan asked wryly.

"Uh, can you take my boots off?" he returned so Alan wouldn't have to deliberately avoid looking at his groin tent for at least a few seconds.

As Alan moved down to the foot of the bed and began untying his bootlaces, Billy said softly, "Ed Banning wouldn't name a pterosaur after me."

Alan smiled and pulled Billy's left boot off before throwing it into the far corner. "Ed Banning wouldn't take your boots off."

"I'm sorry, Alan." Billy closed his eyes and settled more comfortably again as Alan loosened the laces on his right boot. "I got a stupid idea into my head and...I'm sorry."

"Well, unfortunately, you weren't the only one having stupid ideas," Alan answered, pulling off Billy's right boot and throwing it into the corner. "But no harm done." 

"No," he agreed sleepily. "Thank you, Alan."

Silence.

Then he felt Alan move, opened his eyes to find Alan standing over him. "Everything all right?"

Smiling, Alan leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. "It is now."

 

 

End

 

Dig ref: 'A Pteranodon Dig' by Mike Everhart


End file.
